A Huge Majority Of Dems Want Crist As Gov., According to Poll No One is Sure Whether to Trust

Should Charlie Crist return to politics as a Democrat his biggest roadblock may be, well, Democratic voters. After all, one would figure that a man who has a pretty solid Republican political history (despite what Tea Partiers might have had you believed) would have a hard time winning in a Democratic primary.

Well, according to a new poll, Charlie Crist is the top pick of 61 percent of Democratic voters in Florida to win a hypothetical 2014 democratic primary in the Governor's race. That poll was conducted by St. Pete Polls, and, well, no one is really sure whether to believe them.

In a hypothetical match-up for the 2014 democratic primary for Governor, who would you vote for:
Charlie Crist, Buddy Dyer, Nan Rich, Alex Sink or Rod Smith?

Charlie Crist:
60.9%

Buddy Dyer:
7.0%

Nan Rich:
3.5%

Alex Sink:
25.1%

Rod Smith:
3.4%

The poll was conducted with active Democratic voters through out the state

St. Pete Polls is an upstart, non-partisan polling firm that, as the name implies, usually conducts polls of local races in the Tampa Bay Area. There results are often mentioned in the local media there, and the accuracy of their polls has been decent.

Yet, this one seems, well, odd. For one thing Crist isn't even officially a Democrat (yet, anyway). The fact that he's the favorite in primary for a party he's not even a member of is quite bizarre.

What's even odder is the favorable ratings the poll found.

For example, the poll found that 22.3 percent of Florida democrats have an unfavorable opinion of Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich. Just 13.3 percent have a favorable opinion.

We hardly ever see polling of politicians (even of the non-household name variety, like Rich) where there favorability is underwater among their own party. Especially at this rate.

We can't imagine what Rich has done to piss off all these Democrats. Just anecdotally, every Democrat we've talked to who even knows who she is seems to like her.

The poll also found that Dyer and Smith have similarly underwater favorably ratings in their own party. We've never seen polling like this. For comparison check out these early cycle Gubernatorial and Senate polls from Quinnipiac. Voters typically do not hold that sort of hostility to politicians from their own party of the sort of widely unknown stature as Dyer and Rich. It's bizarre.